Disciple (Unit Class)
Disciple or divine units are units that follows a particular religion. Priest units are clerical spellcaster that can heal or command other units and can cast Divine Spells. They have 3 tiers: we will name them Disciple/Priest/High Priest even if the exact appellation change with every particular religion. This confusing peculiarity of the disciple units reflect the heavy separation of each religious line, unknows to arcane spellcaster, able to cultivate opposite specializations at the same time, if they choose. Paladins of Good and Evil On top of the Priests the Disiple line sports some tier 4 special military disciple units: Paladin, Druid and Eidolon, that may be regarded as the paladins of good, neutral and evil respectively. They have all the characteristics of Melee units, or Recon units in case of Druids, but pay attention, they are pure Disciple. They are tied to an Alignment like the High Priest are tied to a Religion, but they will NOT abandon you if you choose to change Alignment. Like all top-tier units they are maxed to 4 per player each, but with a bit of Religion Hopping you may be able to get all of them. Differently from the Priests and High Priest, you are allowed to directly build them, but it is strongly advisable to upgrade them from High Priests, to retain the spell-casting abilities. Using this strategy you will also be able to go over the limit of 4 High Pirest, and more important, you will have some High Priest equivant for a particular relgion that will not abandon you if you change Religion Paladins (11 link=https://fallfromheaven.fandom.com/wiki/File:Strength.gif +3 Holy) may be upgraded from Cultist, Priest of Leaves, Stonewarden, Ritualist, Vicar, Battlemaster, Boarding Party, Champion, Dragon Slayer, Mimic, Vampire or Paramander. Paladins are immune to disease and get a bonus against demons. They have Courage. Only Good aligned players can build Paladins, but anyone may use them. Note that you may build a Vampire Paladin, truly powerful, or a Ritualist Paladin able to cast Ring of Fire, given you have abandoned Ashen Veil for Order to change Alignment. Druids may be upgraded from Confessor, Cultist, Priest of Leaves, Stonewarden, Ritualist, Vicar, Harlequin, Ranger. They lack the brute force of the Good and Evil counterparts, but they are Super-Recon units that can move through Impassable Terrain and super spellcasters able to cast a plethora of Spells.They but cast Entangle, similar to Blinding Light (Dwarven Druids have access to the powerful Crush spell). They have all Channeling I, II and III and Nature I promotion, giving access to Arcane spells of Nature line (they may learn Treetop Defence Poisoned Blade and the precious Vitalize). (Dwarven Druids have Earth I, so they can learn Wall of Stone, Stoneskin and Summon Earth Elemental). But Druids have also the Disciple promotion, so may cast all the basic clerical spells Cure Disease and Heal. Note that not beeing Arcane Units, although the Civilopedia entry suggests that they can have other arcane sphere promotions at level 2 and level 3, they do not have access to the level 1 promotion for those spheres, and having extra nodes of another type do not grant them any free promotions. Eidolon ( 11 link=https://fallfromheaven.fandom.com/wiki/File:Strength.gif +4 Unholy) are Demons and may be upgraded from same units like Paladin with addition of the Demons Diseased Corpses, Sect of Flies, Stygian Guard. They are "not alive" and so may not be enached with Haste, and in the long run this is a severe limitation. Divine Heroes Yvain, Mardero... Bane Divine Beware of the Bane Divine ritual that effectively kills any disciple unit in the game, but require the proximity of the Apocalypse. To be more precise, the Ritual requires an AC of 70 and when completed all Disciple Units in the world, including Paladins and Heroes, will be replaced with Tier 1 Disciples of the same religion. Some says the Ritual is overpowered, but with a cost of 10,000 you have to consider the alternative. Even if you happen to have Death Mana and Enthropy Mana, you still need 2,500 : you may use them to build 41 simple Axeman and roll over anything, Disciple or not. Religious line and disciple units Priests vary with each religion but they share a peculiar pattern. First of all, the player has to come in contact with a religion X, by founding it or by having an opponent player spreading it. A basic disciple unit immediately spawn, with the ability to spread the X relgion (equivalent to vanilla game Missionary), and you may choose to use it to directly spread the religion to one of your city, gaining the ability to build more disciples. Note that occasionally a special event (exploring a lair or a goddy hut) may give the player a free disciple unit. You may also choose to ignore this religion and dispatch the unit to the front as simple medic, and given the lack of medical promotions in the game it may have some sense. Note that with this mechanic you may gain access to any relgion by mere research: even if you do not found yourself any religion, you will be able to access and spread all of them, even if you are absolutely isolated. To found a religion you have to resaech the associated tech, or if you are fortunate, you may use a disciple unit obtained by a special event. You may altogether ignore the X religion in the game, or you may limit yourself to spread the X Temples to gain the advantage of that particular relgion (health fo FoL, gold for RoK...), or you may even choose to purge your cities from non State Relgion with Inquisitor ability. If you choose to invest in the X, religion, you will convert to gain ability to build Priests (with Priesthood tech), tier 2 spellcasters, super-missionay able to directly found a X Temple in a new city. Priests will remain with you even if you abandon the religion, and it may often be a nice idea to build a bunch of them as reserve. Note that you may directly build them in large numbers, unlike Tier 2 Arcane units that have to be promoted. Next step will be to research the religion advanced tech to gain special Heroes or Civics. Finally with Theology tech some Priests with high experience may be promoted to High Priests. Druids are not priests and follow a different path: they requires only Commune with Nature tech and a Grove in the city to be built, but it is far better to promote them using Priests, as they will retain divine spells. Healing and Commanding Disciple units have exclusive access to some exculive promotion useful to cure, heal, convert: * Medic: Medic 1/2/3 permit the healing of units in same tile of +10%/20%/30% per turn. * Cure Disease: removes the Diseased promotion from all units on the casters tile, Diseased Corpses included * Command: divine units may gain the ability to convert and gain control of defeated enemy units. They gain access to Command 1/2/3/4, last one reserved to player wirh Order as state-religion. High priests or druids with Command 3 have 50% chance to sudue a unit upon defeating him, Priors or Chalid have 70% chance with Command 4. Note that Subue Animals and Subdue Beasts have 100% chance, but are limited to Animals or Beast. XP gain All spellcaster gain xp automatically, sitting in their library and laboratories. Priests gain xp faster than Adepts, but slower than Mages. This is because they start with Channeling 2 and not channeling 1. Adepts only have channeling1, and mages have both. High Priests have channeling 2 and 3, while archmages have 1-3. Thus, High Priests gain xp faster than mages, but slower than archmages. Arcane leader have a great advantage on arcane unit xp, but there are no equivalent in the disciple line. It may be a nice idea to earòy buid some spellcaster units, to let them "ripe" and be ready for battle as time passes. Changing Religion High tier units and heroes will leave the civilization that abandons their religion, while basic and mid-range units will remain at your disposal. To make some examples, if you leave Runes of Kilmorph, the hero Bambur and the Runekeepers will leave you, while Stonewarden will not. Any city that has a particular religion may construct the relative temple and buid Disciples. To build It may be useful to change religion to pick best benefit from each one, avoiding the elite units. A common strategy is to convert to Fellowship of the Leaves and adopt just the time to promote each forest to Ancient Forset (+1 food) or to convert to Ashen Veil in the late game to gain a boost in aggressive expansion. Sometimes dwarven leaders switch away from RoK as soon as they have Stonewardens and Temples. Druids and other upgraded priests are an exception: they will remain in control of the player even if the original religion is abandoned, so it is possible ot have an Overlord druid able to cast Kraken even if current relgion is changed. All disciple spellcaster share some common traits: * Tier 1 (Disciple): Medic I. Can sacrify to spread religion (like vanilla Missionaries) or to give a +20 boost of culture and instantly stop any revolt in the city (useful in the capital of a slave nation or while building Beast of Agares). May be built in Cities with the relevant Temple (that acts also as the Vanilla Monastery), even if their Religion is not State Religion. Requires the relevant Relgion "tech" (if you conqer a City with a Temple of a relgion you have not rearchced, you may not build the disciple). Note: strangely does not have access to tier I divine spells. * Tier 2 (Priest): Medic II, accesso to Cure Disease and Command, can found Temple (spread religion and instantly build the relative temple). May be build in cities with relevant Temple, or like Arcane Tier 2, they may be promoted from Level 4 units. Requires Priesthood. Gain access to tier I and tier II spells, but note that often any religon has only one spell in this range. * Tier 3 (High Priest): Top tier spellcaster, National Units maxed to 4. Will leave leaders that abandon relevant religion. Like archmages, only upgraded from 6th level Tier 2 units. Require Theology. A tier 2 spellcaster has also some special upgrade path that remove the affiliation to a particular religion but depends on the alignement of the leader. This alternate Tier 3 units are maxed to 4, like all Tier 3 spellcasters. * Paladin, elite melee reserved to Good leaders. * Druid, spellcaster reserved to Neutral leaders, something like a Paladin of Nature. * Eidolon, elite melee reserved to Evil leaders, something like a Dark Paladin. These elite units are analouge to Lich to the Archmages, but have some key differences: they evolve from Tier 2 units (not Tier 3) and they require a particular alignement. The special Dwarven Druid is simply a Druid that happen to be born in a dwarven nation. He is so powerful a unit, with his unique Crush spell, that it is possible to base an entire strategy on his limited presence. Note that it is possible ot obtain Paladin, Druids and Eidolon by simple building or by promoting other units, but generally it is preferred to use the Priest line. Progression of spellcaster units is similar in the arcane and divine lines: * Arcane: Adept --> Mage --> Archmage (or Lich) * Divine: Disciple --> Priest --> High Priest (or Druid/Paladin/Eidolon/Dwarven Druid) But some differences appear. A confusing complication is that while mages are quite flexible and may learn any of the mana lines, disciple units are heavily bounded to their particular religion, and to stress this aspect they have peculiar, confusing names: The Council of Esus is a religion for thieves. It doesn’t have any preist units: instead recon units created in cities with the religion have a chance to adopt it and gain its benefits. Units that do so gain the Mask (can become hidden nationality) and Steal (has a chance to steal equipment from another unit or city, if failed can cause a war declaration) abilites. They can also spread the Council of Esus to other cities without sacrificing, but paying some money. Because the Council doesn’t have traditional priests players often ignore the religious branch of the tech tree when playing them, all of their units are provided through other branches. Its a good religion if your focusing on another strategy (especially in the recon branch for assassins and such). White Hand is the religion of the winter, unadoptable, linked to the Illians that have a one-time ritual to get only 3 High Priest of Winter. When Auric will ascend to the role of new god of winter, maybe this religion will regain his splendor. Cult of the Dragon is the limited religion that Acheron the Red Dragon develop in his territory. There are some ambitious means to gain control of the powerful hybrid disciple/archane priest of Acheron. Orbis modmod used to introduce this religion in normal gameplay. List of Disciple Units * Acolyte * Confessor * Crusader * Cultist * Disciple of Leaves * Druid * Dwarven Druid * Luonnotar * Ecclesiastic * Eidolon * Lightbringer * Herald * High Priest of Leaves * Host of the Einherjar * Law Bringer * Luridus * Monk * Paladin * Paramander * Priest of Leaves * Prior * Profane * Ritualist * Runekeeper * Savant * Speaker * Stonewarden * Tar Demon * Thane of Kilmorph * Vicar * Zealot Category:Disciple Units Category:Religious Hero Units Category:Religion Category:Living Units